But I Hold Your Hand
by Seta Suzume
Summary: Cashmere and Gloss go into the Third Quarter Quell on their own terms. For rebelcolors' Bread and Circuses prompt: "Gloss/Cashmere - we both go down together"


There is no one in the world Cashmere loves more than her younger brother. There is nothing she would not do for him. Her body paid for his meals and his medicine. She kept him alive against the odds. He had the skills and she had the connections.

It wasn't the first time a career district managed back to back victories, but it was the first time they were siblings. Better than the day that Cashmere won, far more relief-filled, far more thrilling, was the day that she watched them crown Gloss. She stood beside her brother on his gilded throne and when she could, she held his hand and squeezed. Gloss squeezed back. Together they were like a fairytale princess and prince- king and queen - killer and killer arm in arm, like all the approved fairytales in One.

There is no one in the world Gloss loves more than his older sister. There is nothing he would not do for her. Had Cashmere not won the year before, he's certain he could have dominated the field on his own merits, but any win from your own district is a tough act to follow. What could be more difficult to overcome than that of your own beloved sister?

The day that he's crowned victor on camera with Cashmere standing at his side is easily the most glorious day in his entire life. Gloss and Cashmere are eighteen months apart, but people often mistake them for twins. They're similar looking siblings- green eyes and blond hair. Gloss is sure that they're the perfect definition of what romantic sorts call soul mates. They're two halves of the same whole- their minds and hearts as well-suited as their looks.

But no one else can see that, apparently.

The only person a victor can ever love fully and equally is another victor, she'd heard them say. A victor from the same district. She remembers her teachers talking about it- in poise class and in media. That's what they publicly say did in the very first victor, one of their own, when they're forced to say anything.

Mags Gaudet has been a little old lady as long as Cashmere's been around, but she was young once like everyone else. Cashmere takes note of her sometimes when they're both mentoring. She wonders about Jack Umber, whose picture is up in the halls at Training Academy along with all the other victors from One even though he predated the place, who is reason the old people call Jack Johnson "Jack Junior," which he hates.

Cashmere can understand loving someone that people won't approve of. Not even people in the Capitol, where supposedly anything goes.

That would be her one question for Jack Umber, if she could ask him. "Was she worth it?"

If your best chances for love are with another victor, a victor from your same district, shouldn't she and Gloss be the ultimate, most perfect match for one another?

"If you don't agree to being sold, we'll sell your sister," is the gist of the offer the president made him. Gloss didn't realize he was already too late. They don't realize until years later that Snow has given Cashmere the very same deal. Not until Snow sells them off together.

They had taken comfort in one another for all this time without realizing they were attempting to conceal the very same scars. It is eyeopening and strange. Rarely has there been a customer so happy with the purchase of two victors together- unwanted as the circumstances are, seldom have two victors felt such a mix of wonder and horror at meeting this way.

If nothing else, it means they can never doubt that they're the most important ones to one another. Kissing Finnick at a party, that tussle with Phebe in Mentor Central, the terrible television flirtation with Theo Goff- none of it means anything compared to this.

When they're all together at training for the Quell, Cashmere considers asking Mags about Jack and the old days and whatever went on then, but when she hears her speaking, she can't understand more than one in every four words of it between the slur and the heavy side of Four-isms.

She decides to let it go.

Amber Sinclair was Cashmere's mentor, her fading hair still dyed to her Games-era strawberry blond. They had gotten along well then. They still did. So much, in fact, that Cashmere had asked her to be her mentor again.

Only Amber, anyway, would have agreed to have mentored her to her eventual death.

They had been chatting after training one night before her first Games when Amber had said it: "I think killing is more intimate than sex, to be completely sincere." It was a typical Amber quip- the sort of thing that made even a "I think I'm so smart and mature" teenager wonder if it was appropriate for her to be saying it to them (Amber's own mentor, Jack Johnson, always used to say she was "a real piece of work"). "See," Amber had gone on to explain, "When you're dying there's not all that much you can do to fake looking one way or another. Whether you take it stoically or cry like a baby, it's going to be completely sincere. …And you only die once, so it's going to be a totally unique and singular experience."

At the time Cashmere had thought Amber was crazy to say something like this (or maybe drunk- she really liked her fruity cocktails), but had acted blasé and agreed with her like it was no big deal.

When she won, she got it.

Not for anyone but Gloss, but she got it.

They lie between the silk sheets and talk about these things.

"Wouldn't it be romantic to kill each other? Maybe even get it down to just the two of us and then do it- give them the show they put a stop to last year?"

"Sure, it'd be romantic, in each other's arms and all, but I don't know. It wouldn't be like swallowing nightlock. We'd have to try and stab each other at the same time or something. I don't think I could bear to hurt you."

"We charge in then."

"When the odds are uneven."

"We do it holding hands."

For this Third Quarter Quell, the Capitol takes back what it has given. And the best and brightest are who they'll sacrifice. There are the people like Nuts and Volts, sure, like Poppy and Simeon, but these are the people for whom there is no better alternative- or no alternative at all.

The youngest, the prettiest, the most popular. That's who's going back into the arena unless someone volunteers over them (the more brutish Twos were obviously going to fight for it). There was no chance they would reap that weepy man in Four over Finnick Odair or have chosen old, deaf Woof if Eight's only younger male victor hadn't kicked it after that bar fight a few years ago.

From the reading of the card (they are sitting on the couch holding hands when it comes), Gloss and Cashmere decide it. They can't see any way that neither of them will be called. Who cares about the Ones who have come after them? They are all but interchangeable to the greater Panem public. Under what other circumstances would people have cheered as hard for that pair of insipid Twelves?

They will not just accept it- they will demand it. Why would people like Amber or Jack J. want it anyway? They'd rather keep on enjoying their as-close-to-retirement-as-victors-can-get circumstances. Why would the baby victors want it? They just did it. They should take a break- enjoy the lives they've earned.

There are people they are leaving behind, but they hope they will understand that the two of them will be happy. That ever since the day Cashmere stepped up onto that reaping stage this fate has been predetermined. Their lives up 'til now were only death deferred.

Cashmere and Gloss have decided the outcome as thoroughly as they've set up the starting point merely by their choosing. It will be romantic. It will be beautiful.

They would rather die together than live alone.


End file.
